There is scarcely a pretext for supposing that the disturbances in Ireland during the reign of Edward VI. proceeded from the influence of the Roman Catholic religion. The English Lord Deputies made use of no precipitate measures of violence against the Roman Catholics; and, in consequence, the Reformation proceeded without exciting any marked public discontent. Later Protestant writers could not conceive this to have been the case, and have given florid descriptions of the prejudice and terror, with which the nation surveyed the progress of heresy and innovation. But when we examine into facts, we find only one solitary instance on which all this fiction is founded, namely, the opposition of Archbishop Dowdal to the translation of the liturgy. Is there then any wonder that an Archbishop should be found to stickle for doctrinal mystery? Is it not rather surprising that only one was found? We read of no chieftain rebelling on account of religion, nor even making it a pretext for rebellion—we see no apprehension of any thing of the kind entertained by the government; and we must be convinced that historians are guilty of an
Yet, though government gave no general cause of discontent to the Catholics, there were many particular severities and insults which laid the grounds of religious animosity. Archbishop Brown made war against images and reliques, with more zeal than prudence. The garrison of Athlone, no very conciliating reformers, were allowed to pillage the celebrated church of Clonmaccanaise, and to violate the shrine of a great favourite of the people, St. Kieran. The valuable furniture of the churches was every where seized and exposed to sale, so that the Catholics might very well suspect that the low estimation
However, the time was not yet arrived when religious bigotry had added its terrible influence to the other evils which wasted Ireland, The causes of the disturbances in the reign of Edward VI. were the same as those in Henry VIII. with the important addition of extensive confiscations.
The same policy was adopted, the same attempts to acquire a right to interfere in, and to regulate the concerns of the Irish chieftains.
We have seen that in the reign of Henry VIII. the territories and revenues of the powerful house of O'Neil were curtailed, by ordering O'Donnel to be independent of him. This naturally produced discontent, but as the head of the sept was a man of feeble character, no war ensued: Of course another encroachment was made; and in the reign of Edward VI. Macguire, Roe O'Neil, and several other chieftains, were declared independent of O'Neil, and the tribute (Bonnaught) paid to him, was seized on by the English government!
O'Donnel, too, who had been declared independent of O'Neil, found, like the horse who craved assistance from the man, that a too powerful ally is not easily shaken off; for his dependants were also declared independent. The interference of the
This system of breaking the dependencies, as it was called, of the Irish chieftains, was a very obvious means of lessening their power, and converting the nominal sovereignty, which the English held over them, into an actual one. Other means were also adopted.
Upon the death of a chieftain, the English took every opportunity of imposing their own rule of hereditary descent, in place of the Irish mode of election. By thus obtaining the power for a dependant of their own, they could either exercise an absolute dominion over him, or make him an instrument to oppose a more powerful rival.
Thus, on the death of Murrogh O'Brien, Earl of Thomond, the Baron of Ibracken, the next in succession by blood, was obliged by the sept to nominate a Tanist. Daniel O'Brien was appointed to this dignity, but was obliged to relinquish it by the interference of the English; and Leland relates that this was the cause (not because he was a Catholic) of the sanguinary and successful war which he afterwards waged against the English.
An attempt was made by the English government to undermine the power of another dynasty by the same means.
The great Con O'Neil had been persuaded by Henry VIII. to accept an English title, the Earldom of Tirowen, which the English chose to consider as a species of enlisting, that ever after made the chieftain subject to military discipline. The title and the principality were entailed on an illegitimate son. This, of course, was a very obnoxious proceeding to the legitimate sons, and to the whole sept, and the power of the bastard, Matthew, rested entirely on the support of the English. He, feeling this, in order to pay his court, turned informer against his father, who was seized and imprisoned. Shane O'Neil, the legitimate son, invaded the bastard's territory. The latter, supported by the Lord Deputy, took the field; the armies met, and Shane O'Neil obtained a complete victory. Yet the deep enmity which Shane ever after retained against the English, has seriously been brought as a proof of the bigotry of the Catholic religion!
It is plain that the resentment and jealousy of the Irish chieftains on account of these encroachments, must have been in exact proportion to their power and independence. The only right which the English could claim so to interfere, was either from force or from custom. That they did not possess a force adequate to the object is clear. The military strength of the English, at the beginning of the reign
Neither could the English claim from custom any right of controlling the different interests of the Irish chieftains. For even these encroachments were made under indirect pretences, while apparently the Irish princes, and even the degenerate English chieftains, were left in a prescriptive enjoyment of their savage independence, and their mutual feuds. What can be a more striking proof than that they retained the right of making war, peace and treaties, without any dread or expectation of the Lord Deputy's interference? not to go farther back than the present reign for instances, we find that ‘Manus O'Donnel fought a pitched battle with Calvagh O'Donnel, in Ulster, on the 7th of February, 1547.’
‘In Lower Delvin, Mac Maklin and Fally, with their united forces, invaded the country of the McCoughlans.’
‘The Earl of Thomond was at open war with his uncle, notwithstanding the Lord Deputy had used his good offices to unite them.’
‘Richard Burke was at variance with the sons of Thomas Burke: Richard was taken prisoner, and many of his men slain.’
‘Nor were the contests less violent between Richard Earl of Clanricarde, and John Burke. The Earl besieged John's castle, but Daniel O'Bryan came to John's relief, and forced the Earl to raise the siege.’
From these circumstances it is plain, that the Irish chieftains in the reign of Edward VI. could not be expected, either from motives of prudence or right to esteem themselves subjects to the English; and Leland is guilty of a gross misapplication of modern ideas to former times, when he talks of the disloyalty of the Irish chieftains. They were not at that time subjects either de jure or de facto.
Their submission was merely feudal, and nominal; and consequently when the English wilfully perverted this nominal acknowledgment of sovereignty into an actual enforcement of subjection— when they proceeded to interfere with the internal arrangement of each chieftain's petty empire—to release his actual subjects from their allegiance—to abolish his revenues, and alter or abrogate the laws of his nation, and particularly the laws of succession,
The English practised towards the Irish chieftains exactly that species of fraud which is frequent in bargains, when one party enforces his own sense of the terms, although he is aware that the other party never understood the terms in that sense.
The Irish chieftains submitted as feudal princes; the English knew that they did so, but they chose to understand that the Irish submitted as subjects. Like all men, conscious of duplicity, they acted with inconsistency. Though they began to call the Irish chieftains rebels, they felt they were not so; and whenever these chieftains were induced to submit, their submission was always received as a compliment, not as a matter of right, and was rewarded by titles and very considerable grants of land. Nothing essential was asked of them in return. Leland acknowledges that all their princely possessions and rights were guaranteed to them; and says, that ‘so little did they apprehend that their present engagements would produce any essential regulation of their territories, that they still governed their followers by the usual course of Brehon law.’
However unwarrantable by any prior right, this interference was, and however calculated to rouse the resistance of the Irish chieftains, still it might at last have produced the general reformation of Ireland, by establishing the English constitution and laws, in place of the barbarous usages of the Irish, if such had been the real object of the English.
But the English of those days, if they regarded the welfare of Ireland at all, regarded it with a malignant eye; their objects were to gratify their avarice as well as pride, to pillage as well as to tyrannize.
When they invaded the independent privileges of the Irish princes, and chose to consider their resistance as rebellion; had they contented themselves with abolishing the power and exactions of these princes, and extended to their wretched vassals, the protection, the security, and perfect freedom of the English constitution and English law; had they given them that interest in their lands which arises from the rule of lineal descent, instead of the barbarous mode established by the Irish Brehon laws they would have fairly won from these chieftains, the devotion of their subjects, and might have despised the resentment of these ancient dynasties, when bankrupt in the affection of their followers.
But intent only on pillage, their usurpation was so ruinous, that it gave to the native tyrannies grievous as they were, a preference which animated
For the English not only invaded the privileges of the native princes, but they confiscated the lands of their vassals. Though the Irish chieftains exacted much from their wretched followers, still it was under the authority of certain laws, and something was left; the English swept away every thing.
This gave the Irish clans a clear interest in supporting their chieftains, this was the impulse that began, this gave the energy that supported the succeeding rebellion. What idle misrepresentation is it, to suppress a cause so intelligible—so powerful, and to ascribe its effect to religion!
It was in the reign of Edward the VI. that the solid foundation of the succeeding rebellion was first laid, by the confiscation of the lands of Leix and Offalia, now the Queen and King's counties.
This important event is thus briefly related by historians.
Upon the accession of Edward VI. O'Moor, prince of Leix, and O'Connor, prince of Offalia, drew the sword on pretence of some injury received. The lord deputy defeated them, ravaged their territory,
Two whole counties disposed of in this cavalier manner, two principalities extinguished at a blow, and two tribes reduced to beggary, were sufficient causes to produce a general alarm among every sept, as well as all the chieftains in Ireland.
These circumstances appear sufficient to prove that a very small part of the origin of these wars is to he ascribed to religion which, if we except the petty insurrection of the family of Fitz-Eustace (and this is not a very clear case) seems to have had very little influence on events during this reign. But we must be allowed to dwell a little longer on the subject;
Let it then be considered, that this invasion of the rights of the Irish chieftains, and the resistance which it is here alledged to have produced, were not events peculiar to Ireland, but had in fact flowed from a general crisis of political improvement, which had taken place successively through every state in Europe. In feudal times every nobleman enjoyed the prerogatives, and in several countries the title of king. Their dependance on their sovereign was for a long time merely feudal and nominal, while their power over their vassals was arbitrary and exclusive. As the power of the crown encreased, a struggle necessarily took place, which was the cause of wars throughout the whole of Europe. This was strictly the case between the English government and the old chieftains of English race, who had become independent in Ireland. It was nearly the same with respect to the Irish chieftains, only with less appearance of right upon the part of the English, as these chieftains could at no time have ever been considered in the light of subjects, their surrender to Henry II. being of the same nature as their surrender to Henry VIII. merely feudal, reserving to themselves all their princely prerogatives; like the bequest of Lewis XI. to the virgin Mary, of the whole and entire of his county of Boulogne, saving and excepting the revenues.
What was the case at the same aera in France? No one can attentively read the history of the celebrated league, without perceiving how much more influence the ambition of the nobility had on events than religion. For even long after Henry IV. changed his religion, when this pretext was removed, the Duke of Montpensier proposed to him, in the name of the principal French nobility, that he should resign to the governors of the provinces, the property of their governments with an hereditary right to them, requiring nothing from them but a feudal allegiance.2 This shews the temper of the times, which ran entirely in favour of aristocratic independence; the encreasing power of the Crown appeared a novelty and encroachment, and was every where resisted with as much enthusiasm as the invasion of a foreign enemy. It only appears more conspicuous in Ireland, because the extreme weakness of the English colony had allowed not only the Irish chieftains, but its own subjects, to acquire an independence that had now gained the sanction of prescription.